He had not been idle. With such rough kindness as was possible to him he had washed away in tepid water the stains of blood from the breast and face of the poor gladiator, and had bandaged the deep wounds in his breast. With tender care they lifted the still unconscious Phrygian upon a bundle of soft clothes which they had laid upon the mule. Linus, though the task was not without peril, agreed to tend and give him shelter for that night. Then Junia fled back through the deserted streets. Nereus had begun to be anxious at her long delay, and listened to her story with a grave face. He had never liked Onesimus, and the youth’s many sins and errors might well have shaken his confidence. But he and Junia had read not long before the letter which Paul of Tarsus had written to their brother-Christians in Corinth; and, if he wavered for a moment, he was decided in the cause of mercy by Junia’s whispered words, ‘Love suffereth long and is kind; love thinketh no evil; beareth all things; believeth all things; endureth all things; hopeth all things.’ It was agreed that after dark next evening Nereus should remove the dreadfully wounded sufferer from the house of Linus. Pudens, to whom he told the whole story, arranged, with Claudia’s full consent, that Onesimus, as a former member of the household, should be concealed and tended in the hut of one of their country slaves who had charge of a little farm not far from Aricia. This peasant was a Christian, and he carried out the injunctions of his master with faithful kindness. For many weeks Onesimus hung between life and death; at last, slowly, very slowly, he began to recover. Youth and the natural strength of his constitution, aided by the fresh air of the country, the pure milk, the quiet, the simple wholesome food, and the fact that there was nothing to thwart the recuperative forces of nature, won the day in the battle, and once more Death released the victim whom he seemed to hold securely in his grasp. CHAPTER XLI _THE KING OF THE GROVE_ ‘Vallis Aricinæ sylva præcinctus opaca Est lacus, antiqua religione sacer.’ OVID, _Fast._ iii. 263. When Onesimus recovered full consciousness he did not recognise his unfamiliar surroundings, and was too weak to piece together the broken threads of his memory. Gradually he recalled the incidents of the past. He remembered the gladiators’ school, the fight in the amphitheatre, the death of Glanydon, the recoil of feeling which prevented him from killing the Samnite Kalendio, even the sensation which he felt when the sword-thrust pierced his ribs. All the rest was darkness. Where was he? How had he been rescued from the spoliarium? How had he escaped the finishing blow of the confector?